Six Iraqis killed in unrest as 10 US soldiers wounded

MOSUL, Iraq, Sept 29 (AFP) - Six Iraqis were killed in violence across Iraq, while 10 US soldiers were wounded in attacks in the country's north, security officials said Wednesday.
Four US soldiers were wounded when a roadside bomb blew up as their convoy passed near the village Riyadh at 1 pm (1000 GMT), 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside Kirkuk, the US military said in a statement
They were in stable condition, it added.
In Mosul, a car bomb exploded late Tuesday as a US convoy drove near the University of Mosul, wounding six US soldiers, said American military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings.
Five soldiers have since returned to duty, while one was still in hospital, he added.
Two Iraqi security guards were also wounded, said the university's security chief Lieutenant Colonel Zulfikar Omar Salah.
Also in Mosul, thought to be one of the largest pockets of extremist insurgent groups in the country, an Iraqi NGO worker was assassinated overnight, police said.
"Mohammed Hoshyar, head of World Vision in the Nineveh province, was killed by unknown gunmen," police Lieutenant Colonel Hashem Ahmed Shehab told AFP.
Dr Ahmed Abdallah Rajab said the Kurdish aid worker was shot twice in the head.
A Shiite political official, his son and driver were assassinated in the northeastern city of Baquba Wednesday afternoon when six gunmen cut off their car and shot them point blank, the slain man's brother said.
Abdel Ghani Mijbas, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a nationwide Shiite political party, was traveling with his teenage son at 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) when two vehicles gave chase and lobbed grenades at their vehicle, his brother, Nadem Mijbas, told reporters.
The six gunmen stepped out of their cars and shot the pair and their driver dead.
Abdel Ghani headed the local branch of SCIRI's science and culture committee.
Three civilians, including Abdul Ghani's nephew, was wounded in the attack.
Insurgents have previously targeted SCIRI in Baquba, firing guns, lobbing mortar rounds and setting off bombs at their local office.
Two SCIRI officials, one in Baquba and the other near the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, have been assassinated in the past two weeks.
The US military, meanwhile, said it shot dead an Iraqi civilian early Wednesday after he failed to stop at a checkpoint near the restive city of Baquba, north of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, one person was killed and another wounded as they were planting a bomb in the central Sunni neighbourhood of Aazamiyah, a witness said.
"The bomb exploded killing one and injuring the other. A third suspect managed to run away," Marwan Abdel Jabbar said.
A police officer told AFP the wounded attacker had been taken into custody.
Huge explosions rattled central Baghdad's Haifa street district Wednesday as members of the Iraqi national guard, backed by US forces, combed the area for weapons, the interior ministry said.
The US military reported that two bombs had exploded on the street, followed by small arms fire, and said some insurgents were believed to have been captured.
In the radical Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, the US military said it carried out an air strike against "an insurgent rocket team".
There was no immediate report of casualties from local hospitals.
The US military and Shiite rebel Moqtada Sadr have been locked in a struggle for control over the district since last month, with US forces and Sadr's militia regularly battling it out in the teeming neighborhood.